such a thing could be managed — could obliterate them before their company came to their rescue.
Her hands itched, eager to pull Tumna's jesses, to go on the hunt. To strike a blow.
When the wing passed over the town of Skerru, she saw people like ants boiling, all hard at work building what looked like rafts. Something big was up, for sure.
She, Pil, Kanness, and Peddonon set down on Copper Hall's islet while Orya and Warri remained aloft. Three fawkners hustled over to greet them, a cursed sight friendlier than they had been the first time Nallo had landed here.
'What news?' the first cried as they clustered around Peddonon. 'We're in the hells of trouble here.'
'You must have seen!' blurted the second. 'That gods-rotted army is building walkways to cross the marsh and swamp.'
'The hells!' cried the third, looking at Nallo. 'You've got blood all over your leathers.'
Drying streaks splattered her vest and trousers. Flakes shed from her hands. A spot on her chin itched, and when she raised a hand to rub at it, the fawkners flinched as if they thought she was about to hit them.
'We've been in a skirmish.' Peddonon gestured to get their attention. 'I need to see the marshal at once.'
'You're in luck,' said the first fawkner. 'They're in council now, with the commander and that outlander captain.'
'Joss? Is here in Nessumara?'
'Just came in last night-'
'The hells! Kanness, you stay with the fawkners. Nallo, Pil, come with me.'
The fawkners blurted out a protest but a glance from Peddonon, and the menace of his big frame, silenced them. Nallo and Pil trotted obediently after him as he made his way through the compound to the marshal's cote, a pretty cottage surrounded by a garden on the landward side and with a wooden pier jutting out onto a wide channel. Two low-slung boats had been tied to the pier. A girl, ten or twelve years of age and quite thin, was set to watch them. Two elderly reeves sat on the porch, mending harness. When they saw Peddonon they clambered to their feet. One tapped the sliding door and went inside the cote while the other blocked the stairs.
'I'm here to see Commander Joss,' said Peddonon.
'You're Peddo, right? Where's your eagle perched?'
'I'm Peddonon, sergeant in charge of the contingent stationed at Law Rock. If the commander's here, he'll want to speak to me. If Captain Anji is here, he'll want to hear about the skirmish we just fought.'
'Skirmish?'
The old man's gaze fixed on Nallo, taking in the blood. 'Aui! What happened?'
'I'll give my report to-'
The door slid open, and the other old reeve indicated that Peddonon should go in.
He paused on the porch to take off his boots, nodding at Nallo. 'Go wash yourself off.'
'Where?' she demanded.
He waved a hand, but she wasn't sure if he meant the garden, or the pier, or the barracks. The door slapped shut behind him, and the old reeves stared so rudely! She grabbed Pil and walked to the pier. The heat was beginning to rise, already muggy and steamy here in the delta; in another few weeks it would become unbearable. She swatted at gnats attracted to her sweat, but they only returned, like that cursed army: swarms that would eat them alive if they could manage it.
'Abandoned again with the usual disregard important louts show for their underlings,' she muttered. 'Not one word of praise for our victory.'
'Any decent fighting unit would have made quick work of our clumsy attack,' said Pil. 'The eagles are huge targets. We need better tactics, and much more training.'
'Thank you,' she said as she stamped out onto the pier, Pil following with more caution. The girl turned to stare at them. 'Now I'll just shove you into the water, if you don't mind, so you can feel what it's like to have water dumped over your excitement at finally having done something right!'
Pil didn't like water; it had been hard enough to get him to bathe in the way Hundred folk did.
'I didn't mean it,' she added, hating that stiff-faced expression he got.
'You were brave,' he said. 'You didn't hesitate.'
She laughed. 'That's praise coming from you, I suppose, with your fancy Qin ways.'
The brown water flowed so sluggishly you couldn't quite see
the current's ripple. A pair of boats eased downstream, one tied on behind the other, an older woman steering the forward craft. The woman glanced their way casually and then, startled, looked more closely at Pil.
'Heya! Auntie! Look where you're going!' A pair of young men called out jocularly to the older woman. She favored them with a long look, and whistled provocatively, and they laughed in reply. The men, rowing cargo upstream, were stripped down to loincloths, their muscular backs rippling as they stroked.
Nallo nudged Pil, but he was already looking in that pretending-not-to-look way he still had, as if admiring were shameful.
The girl ran her toes along one of the long lines, staring sidelong at Pil much as he was watching the passing rowers. 'Why's he wear his hair all funny like that? Why isn't it short like a proper reeve? He's an outlander. So why's he wear reeve leathers?'
'I'm sure you're a smart girl,' said Nallo. 'If he come in here jessed to an eagle and wears reeve leathers, what do you suppose he is? Anyway, let me ask you a question. Why does this water stink so much?'
'It doesn't! You've got blood on you. All dried and flaking off. Yuck.'
'It does! It smells like rotting fish and rubbish. Yuck.'
'I never asked you!'
'Yes, but you had plenty to say about my friend here, and you never asked him, just talked to me like he wasn't even there.'
'Outlanders can't talk proper speech, everyone knows that. If he could, why doesn't he say anything?'
'I have nothing to say,' said Pil softly. The girl, hearing him speak, shrieked and danced away to the end of the pier. He grinned, more sweetly than Nallo ever did.
The male rowers had vanished past a point of land piled high with piers and warehouses, and the auntie floated out of sight under a narrow arched bridge that stretched between Copper Hall's islet and a spur of land that held what looked like a council square behind a screen of mulberry trees. The channel lay empty but for a leafless branch swirling aimlessly like a dead snake in the brown water.
The girl sidled a few steps closer. 'Folk say we're all likely to die,' she ventured, still staring at Pil. 'Not so much by starving, 'cause we got fields all over the islands, but 'cause that army, they coming back.'
'This city is well defended by the river,' said Pil. 'Only on two roads can an army march in across the wetlands. Likely the army will build paths and rafts. But your soldiers have weapons, boats, archers. You know the land. All this you can fight with.'
'We dun't really have soldiers,' said the girl. 'My brother got hisself killt. He was on Veyslip Island with the militia that held off the main attack on the east causeway. So he's a hero, but he's still dead. I dun't see how we can fight them again. My clan tried to get us out in a boat but it cost too much. At least we live here in the hall, and get nai every day for our labor. Why do you fight them?' she said to Pil. 'You being an outlander, I mean.'
He fingered his neat topknot. The clubbed hair bound around with thin leather strips had not a strand out of place. 'I am a reeve.'
'Heya!' Peddonon appeared on the porch. 'You two!'
Nallo rolled her eyes. 'He's changed now that he's been put in charge on Law Rock. Whew! High and mighty!'
Pil looked awa|.
'You got something going on there, eh?'